This is still not official but I got it from what I believe to be a reliable source. I apologize in advance if there are mistakes. I will fix the schedule and the pool composition once it becomes official or when some national federations publish it separately.

Thanks for posting this info. I can accept any non-top level teams to play in this team, considering the business benefit brought to this sport. The only team deserved to be in but missing from this list is Slovenia. They achieved remarkable international result in the past two years at WL and EC.

Thanks for posting this info. I can accept any non-top level teams to play in this team, considering the business benefit brought to this sport. The only team deserved to be in but missing from this list is Slovenia. They achieved remarkable international result in the past two years at WL and EC.

I can already see Top teams like Brazil, Russia, USA, Italy not sending their best players but their team Cs on this tournament. It is going to become a third tier tournament and more continental tournaments will become more important because of the qualification to bigger tournaments such as Olympics or the thing that will replace World Cup.

I can already see Top teams like Brazil, Russia, USA, Italy not sending their best players but their team Cs on this tournament. It is going to become a third tier tournament

I don`t think so, they probably won`t play all 5 weeks with A team, they could play 3 weeks with A team, and other 2 weeks with B/C teams. A team players gotta play WL and GP in order to get ready for WCH, WC, OG, they can not just practice all summer long and show up for the Major Tournament later in the summer.

And with 2 extra weeks, this is be perfect for coaches to give new players the chance to show what they can do and what level they are at.

Let`s take the Brazilian Women`s as a example. Right now Ze Roberto has a couple of options on the OH with (Natalia is the only one safe), Rosamaria, Drussyla,Amanda, and if Fe Garay and Jaque comes back he will need to have them playing in the GP to be able to evaluate them, but he still needs to keep evaluating Rosamaria,Drussyla,Amanda. That means having 15 games in the GP is great because we can give the chance for all of the them to play.

I did not say they are not going to take all their best players. Just we won't see their best teams put forward anymore at all given time.

If Team USA did it... I highly doubt they will not do it again. And so the other teams.

It's just a cycle that will continue with the 7 year immunity for those teams protected from being "relegated".

And also it will create strong possibility of teams getting easy wins based on rosters you send. If they send their best players so they can win the tournament or send young players for experience then you can see a whole of Germany, Thailand and Poland making it to the next round or even become title contenders.

No wonder a lot of teams approved this because the nature of the tournament can be manipulated.

According to Tunisia Volleyball federation, a new competition will be created in 2018: the "FIVB Men's Challenger League" with 20 teams participating.

In place of the european teams, especially Belgium and Slovenia, i would just show FIVB the finger. There are just no benefits for them to fly around the world and play the likes of Tunisia, Mexico or Chinese Taipei. If they want practice during summer, they would be much better of with a kind of "European League".

Heard an interesting bit of news last night during the USA-Brazil friendly from Paul Sunderland.

The new look World League will have the same prize money for men and women. I had not seen anything saying that, so a surprise to me and many others as well I think.

If the woman's price money would be lifted to the men's level that would probably be a kind of good news. If it is the other way round, that might hint to some financial/commercial difficulties at FIVB. We can already wittness this at Beach World Tour.

According to Tunisia Volleyball federation, a new competition will be created in 2018: the "FIVB Men's Challenger League" with 20 teams participating.

In place of the european teams, especially Belgium and Slovenia, i would just show FIVB the finger. There are just no benefits for them to fly around the world and play the likes of Tunisia, Mexico or Chinese Taipei. If they want practice during summer, they would be much better of with a kind of "European League".

Heard an interesting bit of news last night during the USA-Brazil friendly from Paul Sunderland.

The new look World League will have the same prize money for men and women. I had not seen anything saying that, so a surprise to me and many others as well I think.

If the woman's price money would be lifted to the men's level that would probably be a kind of good news. If it is the other way round, that might hint to some financial/commercial difficulties at FIVB. We can already wittness this at Beach World Tour.

I agree with you. There is no point to travel so much to play with average level teams. Instead, they should focus on European league to increase its level. If they would promote the winner of EL to world league, then teams might bother to send their A team to EL otherwise it is just play ground for the teams like Albania, Azerbeijan